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In just 57 days, an independent investigation has uncovered Russian drug cheating on a massive scale, across all summer and winter sports, which started after their disappointing medal count at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Richard McLaren, the Canadian law professor appointed by the World Anti-Doping Agency, discovered that by late 2011, the Moscow lab had completely abandoned the notion of accurately reporting positive and negative results and, instead, acted on orders from the deputy minister of sport to “save” athletes, which meant reporting results as clean no matter how dirty they were.

He also discovered that the tamper-proof bottles used for urine samples aren’t actually tamper-proof once the Russian FSB, formerly known as the KGB, became involved. That allowed Russian athletes at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, including medal winners, to take performance-enhancing drugs knowing their urine samples would be replaced in the dead of the night by clean ones.

“Can you imagine if CSIS was involved in trying to win a water polo tournament, how ridiculous it would seem in Canada?” said Canadian Olympic kayaker Adam van Koeverden. “Don’t they have better things to do?

Added race walker Inaki Gomez: “There needs to be some sort of repercussions for this sort of behaviour. We can’t trust them for future events.”

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This is the third report in the last eight months that has concluded the Russians are guilty of widespread state-sanctioned doping — but it is the first one to go well beyond track and field and delve into winter sport and the Sochi Olympics.

Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren at a news conference where he tabled the findings of his investigations into doping by the Russian Ministry of Sport during the Sochi games. (Chris So / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Canadian Richard McLaren released his report Monday into claims of state-sponsored doping by Russia at the 2014 Winter Olympics. (Kerstin Joensson / AP FILE PHOTO)

McLaren’s report, released in Toronto Monday, also made it clear this was not the actions of a few rogue officials but part of a national edict to win at all costs, which the sport ministry “directed, controlled and oversaw.”

The way forward — according to the World Anti-Doping Agency, national organizations dedicated to clean sport and a great many athletes — is crystal clear: Russia must be banned from sending a team to the Rio Olympics.

On Tuesday, they could find out if the highly-political International Olympic Committee, which has the power to ban Russia, is willing to take that step.

“It is imperative that there are consequences at all levels for those who are cheating the system, not just the athletes,” Canada Sport Minister Carla Qualtrough said. “I support the WADA recommendations following this investigation and agree more investigation is warranted. As an international sport system, we need to come together for a collective response at all levels.”

In a statement, IOC president Thomas Bach said McLaren’s findings reveal “a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sport and on the Olympic Games.” Its executive committee will convene Tuesday to “carefully study the complex and detailed allegations, in particular with regard to the Russian Ministry of Sport.”

In June, the last time the IOC had a chance to make a stand against Russia when the issue was mass doping in track and field, it sidestepped the matter and left it up to individual sport federations to determine which Russians were clean and eligible to compete. That has resulted in appeals to the international sport court, and great uncertainty over which Russian athletes might be in Rio.

Reacting to this report, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement the officials named would be suspended pending their own investigation. But he also repeated past Russian suggestions that the whole doping scandal is little more a politically-driven Western attack on Russia and said it would be a mistake for the IOC to ban Russia.

Athletes on the IOC and WADA commissions acknowledged that banning a nation is a huge step but said, given the evidence, there is no other choice.

“As difficult as it is, by not enacting the recommendation … they risk very much reducing the credibility of the movement, of the organization and Olympic sport,” Adam Pengilly, a former British skeleton racer and member of the IOC athletes’ commission, said. “I hope that they have a strong will for clean sport and not to play politics.”

WADA, which has faced intense criticism of its own for not responding aggressively to allegations of systematic doping by Russians dating back years, tasked McLaren with this investigation after former Moscow lab director, Grigory Rodchenkov made allegations of sample manipulation in the New York Times in May.

Rodchenkov, the lab-director-turned-whistleblower, said he was handed opened urine sample bottles by FSB agents through a hole in the wall in the Sochi lab and replaced the contents with clean urine to pass international scrutiny. Fearing for his life, he fled to the United States last November.

The final report, though, is based on much more than the word of one man.

“The evidence we have uncovered is all verifiable and can be cross-corroborated by multiple sources,” McLaren said.

In the short time they had to work — which included retrieving deleted files and translating documents — McLaren’s team was able to uncover data that shows the ministry of sport ordered the Moscow lab to “save” Russian athletes in 312 cases by marking their positive test results as negative ones.

That included athletes who competed at the 2013 Moscow world track and field championships, 2015 world swimming championships in Kazan, as well as athletes preparing for the 2012 London Olympics.

McLaren found the save used so often he nicknamed it the “disappearing positive methodology.”

“Every positive test sent to the Moscow lab was sent up the chain of command and orders sent back down, now that has to affect every single sport across the board,” he said.

The report does not name any specific athletes but states that disappearing positives occurred in summer sports ranging from the obvious targets of athletics and weightlifting to less obvious ones including sailing and table tennis. Winter sports included skating, hockey, skiing, snowboarding, biathlon, bobsled and curling.

The report’s database is just a “narrow slice” of what was going on, McLaren said. If he’d had more time, he’s certain he would have found even more.

“There is much more work that could be and should be done,” McLaren said, noting that with the Rio Olympics just weeks away, he had to report now. “It has been a very intense 57 days.”

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